How about a wind farm in our area?

There's no free lunch when it comes to energy.

While there is some talk in Washington of restoring the nuclear power industry, Monday's 6.8-magnitude quake in Japan and the subsequent leak of low-level radioactive material won't do the industry's cause much good.

Nuclear energy certainly has its advantages, but the threat of massive disasters like the Chernobyl Power Plant in Ukraine demonstrates the potential for disaster. Natural disasters, human failures and the potential for terrorism will always make nuclear power plants an "iffy" proposition.

Not that alternatives like coal are all that attractive, once one takes the cost of mining and transporting the fuel, and dealing with the emissions into account.

For the future, we'll need as wide a variety of energy sources as possible, whether nuclear, coal, oil, solar, hydro or wind.

Toward that end, the Nebraska Public Power District is seeking proposals for up to 100 megawatts of wind-powered generation capacity somewhere near its power transmission facilities.

The proposal indicates just how quickly wind power can be added. While conventional power plants take years and nuclear plants might take a decade or more to bring on line, NPPD hopes to have the new wind farm pumping energy into the state electric grid by Dec. 31, 2008.

The timeline should be doable.

Ground was broken on the 60-megawatt, 36-generator NPPD wind farm in Ainsworth in April 2005, and the facility was turned over to the owner on Sept. 15 of that year.

The publicly-owned utility wants to encourage private developers and local entities using new Community Based Energy Development legislation to get into the act.

We've watched with curiosity as huge wind turbine blades negotiate the U.S. Highway 83 corners in McCook on their way north and south, and would like to see some of them find a home in our area.

Not only would a Southwest Nebraska windfarm like that in north central Nebraska have the obvious benefits that come with alternative energy, but we can imagine other advantages.

For one, it wouldn't be out of line to expect families to take a detour off Interstates 80 or 70 to enjoy a view of huge, churning turbines harvesting wind, one of the plains states' most plentiful products.

For another, it would demonstrate our region's commitment to the future -- helping settle territory already staked out by the booming ethanol industry.

We hope someone in Southwest Nebraska takes NPPD?up on its offer.